


Heroism

by ThatDamnKennedyKid



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Anxiety, Brotherly Bonding, Depression, Self-Hatred, Self-Worth Issues, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-24
Updated: 2020-07-24
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:01:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25482088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThatDamnKennedyKid/pseuds/ThatDamnKennedyKid
Summary: The tragedy of being a hero is that it doesn't undo the fact that no one came for you.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes & Tony Stark
Comments: 8
Kudos: 55





	Heroism

He sits in the hotrod and stares ahead. 

The workshop is darkened, only the vague blue light illuminating the space. He's not looking at the half-finished projects across the room, nor at the cars all lined up neatly beyond that. Dum-E, U and Butterfingers are all in their charging ports, though they don't seem to have gone into sleep mode. Maybe JARVIS is keeping them awake, since he ws muted over three hours ago. 

There's no booze close to him - or left in the house, even - but his fingers don't even itch to hold the glass. He's almost grateful, but he can't summon the energy to feel that deeply. Not on his alcoholism, anyway. Instead, his numb hands and head are filled with something else. 

He twitches, and his gaze finds the Reactor in his hands. 

He can feel the fatigue and pain settling in from having it out, and his eyes burn at the bright light. It hums softly in his palms, a vibration he's gotten used to feeling in his sternum, and sits innocently, passively waiting. 

The Reactor never judged him. 

It was a physical representation of his agency - the choice to continue on living no matter the agony. Its whole existence was predicated on his, but it had no views one way or the other on whether he _should._

He likes to think Rhodey and Pepper would have some thoughts, seeing him like this, but he's not as sure as he'd like to be. 

He thinks about the last time he was sitting in this car, in these clothes (sans the hoodie Natasha stole), with his life in the balance like this. He may not have been feeling the same way then as he is now, but the circumstances are the same - coming to terms with possible death. 

Then, as now, he knows he should speak to someone, air all this out. There was never any training for him, and the issues he had even before remain completely untouched. Now, with the nightmares and the blame and the guilt, he struggles even more. He considers how Rhodey and Pepper, the last time he was here, tried to be respectful of him and not push, to let him come to them. 

He remembers Rhodey's baleful look, as though it physically pained him to see him to desolate. He recalls Pepper's gentle suggestions that he sleep more and take care of himself. He remembers feeling like he shouldn't need their help, relying on them so much. He remembers thinking that with his will and company in order, it would be better for the palladium to take him. 

There's no palladium as an excuse now. He took the Reactor out of his chest of his own free will. And he knows that no one will come if he lays it to the side. He can stay here, in the hotrod, and let it all come to a peaceful and quiet end in the driver's seat. 

There's no broken team, no missed opportunities, no disappointed friends, no imagined allies, no yelling politicians or arguing lawyers, no screaming crowds, no false pretenses. 

He's on borrowed time anyway. May as well. 

The hotrod dips and he's pulled out of his thoughts enough to look over. 

Bucky gets in the seat beside him, quiet as a mouse. Probably how he got in here, to be honest - that, and JARVIS' worry. 

The former assassin picks up the Reactor from his lax hand with his own metal fist and he considers that perhaps the choice will be taken out of his hands after all. It wouldn't be much effort to crush the small machine. J could fabricate a new one quickly enough to save him, but he knew if this is what Bucky does, he won't let J do it. 

He'll let fate decide, right here and now, how he dies. 

But Bucky doesn't close his fist around the Reactor. He just looks down at it, a murky, curious expression on his face. 

"Isn't this supposed to be in your chest?"

Bucky's voice is low and scratchy, like he's not used it much recently, but it also doesn't break the ambiance. 

"Yup."

"Then why isn't it?"

"I wanted to see it."

"You have mirrors for that."

He doesn't bother correcting the assassin - he wanted to see his own worth, weight it in his hands. The Reactor's just a convenient representation of said worth. 

Bucky's sharp blue eyes meet his, and the neutral expression softens to one of sympathy and empathy. The assassin strokes the Reactor with a metal thumb, looking back down at the little technological marvel. 

"You know, when I was in Romania, I debated killing myself." Bucky says, tone nearly conversational. "I thought about everything that had happened, everything I had done. I wasn't in control of myself, but I had still done those things. And, I thought, no one came back for me in the Fourties. They didn't try to make sure I was dead, even retrieve my body. I didn't matter then, and whatever worth I had was dissolved under the weight of my sins. So I planned it, several ways in case the others failed. I know I'm hard to kill, and that would be true even of myself."

He stares at the assassin now, whose face is cast in sharp relief by the Reactor. There's something so desolate and stricken hiding there, a wound on his soul that will never heal. 

"But then Steve convinced me to go after Zemo, that I could use my skills and my knowledge for good. I could start helping, doing what was right. I don't think Steve realizes that all I've ever been, even before the Winter Soldier, was a creature who wanted to live. I wanted to survive being poor, and I was drafted into the army, not some patriotic volunteer. And then, when HYDRA got me, I was solely invested in remaining alive. That's all - no brilliant end goal, no mission to complete, not a single loved one to return to. I was a mindless beast, and I wanted to live."

The metal fingers played deftly over the humming blue glass, dancing like a pianist to some unheard tune.

"And when I planned my death, it wasn't because I stopped wanting to live, it was because I couldn't convince myself that I was worth being alive when so many others weren't."

He swallowed thickly, the emotions he wasn't trying to feel welling up behind his eyes. Bucky turned to face him, one leg propped up on the seat. 

"I read your file, the SHIELD one. I know what the Ten Rings did to you, and I know what you did before anyone else was around to help you. I saw your speech, when you shut down weapons manufacturing." Bucky reached over and took his hand in the flesh one. "It would have been so easy to ignore it all, to relegate it to memory and move on, safe and secure in your previous world. After all, you'd pretended to be okay your entire life, what was a little more effort?"

The tears started to roll down his cheeks. Buck's smile was sad, understanding and gentle. 

"And I know, more than anyone else, what it's like to have no one come for you, to have no one try to save you. And I know that taking that pain and using it to motivate yourself to shield others from having to experience it doesn't make it hurt any less."

"No, it doesn't." He choked out. "And being punished for trying to be better makes it worse."

Bucky nodded. "I know."

"When will I ever be enough?" He bit back the sob rising in his throat. "I keep giving, keep trying, but it's not enough."

"Do you know why I never wound up attempting to kill myself?"

"No?"

Bucky leaned forward, pressing the Reactor hard into his palm. "Because being alive is not a matter of worth. We don't have to earn the air we breathe. There is no qualifying measurement of goodness or heroism we have to meet to deserve to continue to exist. Life is intended to be lived out, and there is no moral equivalency either way."

Bucky folded his fingers around the Reactor. 

"I'm alive because I'm fortunate enough - or unfortunate enough, I suppose - not to be dead. How we choose to spend that time doesn't mete out a judgement on our souls - we do that. And as much as neither of us may see it this way, we've not lived lives to be ashamed of. So much is beyond our control, and chaos theory works against us in every way. All we're responsible for is the choices we can make, and to try and make our time alive of some worth to ourselves."

His fingers were trembling, but Bucky's were calm. 

"And for what it's worth, Iron Man and Tony Stark mean a lot to me, and have helped me when no one else would."

He managed a derisive laugh. "Yeah, okay."

"I'm serious. No one else tried to keep Steve out of prison, tried to come help us in Siberia, even if that ended poorly. You kept Steve alive and free. You were behind the capture alive order in Bucharest. Your escape from the Ten Rings, your shutting down manufacturing, your decryption on the helicarrier and your destruction of AIM threw so much of HYDRA's planning out of order, allowing me to be deployed during INSIGHT and subsequently freed. You don't know how far your touch goes, but I feel it. And I am grateful to you."

Bucky pushed his hand holding the Reactor gently back in his direction. 

"I don't want you gone. I want you here."

He hiccuped a strangled laugh, unable to see through the tears. "You know, I think you just broke my whole shtick."

Bucky cocked his head, but visibly deflected with relief when, with a practised motion, he flipped up hos shirt and locked the Reactor back into place. "How so?"

His body's wave of relief was so immense, it took all his empty energy with it. He slumped against Bucky, face smushing into his chest. "You came."

Bucky pulled him closer, letting that supersoldier heat sink into his pulsing, aching chest. "Rest, Tony."

He patted Bucky's thigh. "My hero."


End file.
